


Trapped Between the Memory and the Moment

by the_rck



Series: House of Sulfur and Mercury [11]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Aunt/Nephew Incest, Background Luke/Gail, Background Luke/Merlin, Incest, Multi, Pregnancy, reference to suicide, references to rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-16 03:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13627371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Martin wants very much to be a better father than Random was. That requires actually talking to Coral.





	Trapped Between the Memory and the Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kevin Carey's "Set in Stone."
> 
> The M rating is mostly for implications and for almost everyone being a terrible person.
> 
> Takes place shortly after "Your Future Has a History" and therefore has Luke | Rinaldo not remembering most of his life. Choosing to erase so much of himself is the referenced suicide in the tags.
> 
> This assumes that Martin got stuck doing the same things with Coral that Merlin did in canon and so requires that the Pattern have some level of sentience. I usually throw that bit of canon out, but it's necessary to explain Martin/Coral as much as it was to explain Merlin/Coral. The references to rape in the tags are for both the forced aspects of Martin/Coral ('The Pattern made them do it' must be the Amber equivalent of 'aliens made them do it,' right? Plus, Coral was unconscious in canon which makes it ickier) and for pretty much every relationship involving Luke | Rinaldo, past or present.
> 
> Part of a set of branching AUs. An index to them that explains where each one diverges from the others can be found [here on DreamWidth](https://somethingdarker.dreamwidth.org/36076.html).

After we were introduced, Luke Reynard gave me a broad smile and stuck out his hand to shake mine. “Merlin’s talked a lot about you,” he said.

Even his accent was different. If Merlin hadn’t told me so, I wouldn’t have guessed that this was the same man I’d met before. I’d have assumed a poorly matched Shadow. I smiled while lying through my teeth. “I’m pleased to meet you. Merlin’s talked a lot about you, too.” Learning to be a diplomat had to be good for something.

And maybe thinking of him as a Shadow would help me forget that I’d fucked him-- raped him-- and enjoyed it, that I’d beaten the shit out of him in order to get the story of what he and his mother had done to Merlin.

This Luke had a sense of self-confidence and safety that the person he had been before had lacked. He stood differently. Less tension in his shoulders. Less situational awareness. That other Luke had spent most of his time just barely controlling panic, and I hadn’t realized it until I saw him happy and at ease.

I didn’t want to spend another second in his company.

I had no idea how Merlin could be so pleased about the whole thing. I thought I understood why Luke would have wanted it, but I really didn’t understand why Merlin would have allowed it. 

No. I did.

This was a do-over. Merlin could have Luke in a fantasy where Rinaldo wasn’t even a ghost of an idea, where betrayal had never occurred to either of them.

I let my smile slip into worry and said, “But I’m really here to see Coral. Do you know where she is?”

He turned and pointed. “Under the willow. Merlin made it so that nothing bites, so she doesn’t have to worry about midges from the pond.”

“Thanks!” I clapped him on the shoulder and hurried toward the tree he’d indicated. I didn’t much want to talk to Coral either, but at least she hadn’t been mind wiped.

I glanced back and saw a woman I didn’t recognize but who I assumed must be Gail come up and wrap her arms around Luke. With luck, he would never guess that the hints of worry in her body language meant anything but worry that I might be jealous of a nobody who’d caught Merlin’s eye.

How much had Merlin and Coral told Luke Reynard about the complications of our family relationships? Gail knew more than Coral did, but she needed to appear as surprised by every revelation as Luke now was.

Thinking about it made my head hurt.

Yes, that worried ache had nothing whatsoever to do with needing to talk to Coral. I’d gotten her out of Amber so fast after we found out she was pregnant that-- Well, as excuses went ‘The Pattern made us do it’ might satisfy Dad and Merlin, but it really wasn’t going to work anywhere outside of the family.

Inside the family, it was a pat on the shoulder and a well-these-things-happen.

Outside the family… She was the wife of a king, a king who’d been missing for years and who wasn’t ever coming back because if he did--

At least they’d thought to make sure Coral wouldn’t recognize Rinaldo. She’d only met him the once, so maybe Gail hadn’t had to take too many memories from her. Merlin had assured me that the process hadn’t hurt the baby, that he’d made sure in advance that it wouldn’t.

If it might have, he’d have added keeping Luke and Coral apart to the probably epic farce of making sure that certain people living in his Ways never met each other. Personally, I’d just have poisoned Julia early on.

Or maybe tinkered with her memories as much as they’d done with Luke’s. Her son would never know that his mother didn’t accurately recall her life on Earth. Merlin, instead, was still stuck on who was going to take the fall as the kid’s father. Merlin could, but then he’d have to lie to his mother.

And the kid might try to walk Corwin’s Pattern because he thought he had Corwin’s blood.

I’d suggested blaming Dalt or blaming Oberon. Neither of them were going to argue about it. Caine wouldn’t, either, but Julian and Gerard were likely to question that one.

Suggesting Brand as father was never going to come up.

Going back to Coral, somehow, every member of the family was managing to skip over the so-you-fucked-your-aunt part of my problem. At least that part was actually a secret because the fact that Oberon had knocked up the wife of an ambassador-- Even with Oberon long dead, that part wasn’t going to go over well with the Begman government.

Dad was still trying to figure out a way out of the political mess. If Coral’s father-- her mother’s husband, rather-- had been dead, things would have been much simpler, but killing him at this point would-- I couldn’t image Coral as another Dalt-- which may have been chauvinism on my part-- but there were a lot of other ways to attack Amber.

I really could see Coral becoming another Fiona.

I was never going to forget that Fiona had stood with Brand. She’d changed her mind by the end, but he hadn’t actually gone anywhere that she hadn’t known he would.

I really kind of wanted her and Bleys locked up with Dalt. Well, not _with_ him. That would be unkind to Dalt.

Fiona and Bleys both resembled Brand enough that I left Amber when they came home. Vialle had noticed and had asked. I hadn’t expected her to sympathize. I don’t know if she told Dad, but he argued less when she helped me pack my bags.

And, if either Fiona or Bleys disappeared, someone would question it. Eventually.

Not that anyone had noticed that Dalt was gone. Not yet. That part of what Merlin’s constructs could do apparently hadn’t occurred to anyone but Dad.

Coral actually greeted me with a smile. It even seemed to be genuine.

I smiled back and tried hard to make it genuine.

She was farther along than I’d really expected. 

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought. I knew how long it had been for her. That was the whole point of me coming to Merlin’s Ways. “How on earth are you supposed to get back up again?” I asked her.

She was sitting on a blanket on the ground. She looked both awkwardly unbalanced and completely comfortable. She laughed. “If I really can’t, someone will come and help me. Come. Sit.”

I sat. We both watched the water for a while without saying anything. I broke the silence first. “There are a lot of things we never talked about.” I wasn’t sure she’d understand most of them. She was so very young. Stepping onto the Pattern to begin with had been a bit of fun for her rather than a gamble that might cost her life. Telling the Pattern to choose where she should go--

I was almost certain that she hadn’t even considered the size of the political mess if she died on the Pattern or if I hadn’t been able to find her. Even if she hadn’t been in a trap, she had no idea how to shift Shadow. Finding specific people in Shadow was actually really fucking hard. Especially people I didn’t know well.

She kept her eyes on the water. “Merlin’s talked about some of them.”

I have no idea what she was looking at. Possibly the insect landing on the smooth surface? Possibly signs of fish that would eat them? Or birds that might eat the fish?

Maybe I was a little obsessed with bigger things coming along, right when things were fun, and killing whatever was having fun.

There were probably infinite layers of bigger birds to eat the smaller ones, and even when one got to the end of that, it went back to the damned bacteria eating everything. The things that couldn’t be seen couldn’t be avoided.

Which brought me back to Merlin’s children.

She put a hand on her abdomen. “Merlin’s doctors say a girl.” She set her jaw for a fraction of a second. "Merlin said there were... options that might let me--" She shrugged. "He said they might be able to... transplant the fetus. It sounded a lot more unpleasant than having the baby."

"Your choice." It wouldn't have been because Merlin wouldn't have let her do anything about the pregnancy that I didn't approve first, because Merlin wasn't taking care of her out of the goodness of his heart. If she didn't know, I didn't want to point any of it out. I didn’t want to think about whether or not I’d have let her make the decision. I put my hand over hers, very tentatively because I wasn’t sure my touch was welcome. “Grandmother will be pleased.” It was partly a question. I wasn’t sure she wanted any of this known. “We haven’t…” 

Her hand twitched under mine, so I pulled back. 

“I know,” she said. “And… I don’t know. Merlin’s offered to let me and the child stay. Or just the child. Nayda says that her-- our-- father would welcome a grandchild, but I think… that might be because of Kashfa.”

Putting an infant on the throne of Kashfa might solve some political difficulties while causing others. “If that’s what you want.” I pretty much had to help with whichever choice she made. 

Merlin would certainly be happy enough to imprison her and her sister if I wanted that. He’d probably put them right next to Dalt, but I was remembering Clayre and Gramble. Part of why Merlin wouldn’t-- couldn’t-- see them was knowing how badly he’d wanted Jasra dead. Not because he regretted her death but because he desperately didn’t want them to know that ugliness about their origin.

“I’d like to be better father than Dad was.” That was true as far as it went. “But I think I’d better stay out of Kashfa.” Part of me wanted to tell her that she could secure that throne-- and her status as Queen of Kashfa-- by having a child with Luke Reynard. That would let my child-- our child-- stay clear of Amber’s reach if she wanted.

Which meant that I really wasn’t considering sending the child to Rebma or asking Dad and Vialle to raise her. I wanted the child to stay here. Merlin’s Ways were safer than anywhere else I could think of. Merlin’s AI children were as loyal to Clayre and Gramble as they were to Merlin, and part of me hoped that might extend to a foster-sibling.

“You have opinions,” Coral said almost as if she had been reading my mind.

“Yes,” I admitted. “But you should have a say in something about this whole mess. You’ve been doing the hard part.” Not that the lies and diplomacy were easy, just possibly easier.

“I’m not stupid,” she said.

“I didn’t think you were.” I had thought that, but she was also so very, very young. She probably was Oberon’s last child and had been born after his death.

“I understand the implications of Merlin’s ‘children.’” The twist to the final word didn’t reject the personhood of the AIs so much as acknowledge their alienness. “Merlin loves you. Not more than he loves them but more than he loves anyone else. He’s been… very polite, and he’s not jealous, but…” She shook her head. One of her hands plucked at the blanket she was sitting on. “Nayda recognized him,” she said very softly.

I knew that ‘him’ wasn’t a reference to Merlin. I’m pretty sure that she felt me flinch because she turned to look at me.

She didn’t look heartbroken. She didn’t look angry. She just looked puzzled.

I sighed. “They really did go to school together.” I kept the words as even as I could. “He’s… also your nephew. Every bit as much as I am.”

Her eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t know.”

I understood that her actual question was ‘Why?’ “He tried to kill Merlin. More than once. He and his mother held Merlin for a few years and… were not kind.”

She really didn’t need those details. If she wanted them, she could ask someone else.

“It would be kinder,” I said after a few seconds of silence, “simply to go on pretending not to have noticed. Luke doesn’t know. Rinaldo… chose suicide. It’s creepy as fuck, but he had other options.”

She nodded.

“If you want Kashfa for our child,” I told her, “I won’t try to stop you, and I will help if you need it. My preference would be for you both to stay here for a while. Time here, relative to Amber, runs fast. A week there is more like a year here.” I sighed. “But that also costs you. So soon after walking the Pattern, you really ought to be wandering Shadow and experimenting with magic and--” I waved a hand. “It’s not a lot of time, relative to our life spans, but if you stay, you’ll end up much different from the rest of the family, more than you already are. None of us who still live have raised children, not unless you count the kin in the Courts of Chaos. Neither Merlin nor I met our fathers until we were adults. Rinaldo… lost his early. No one else admits to children.”

I took a deep breath because this was the difficult part. “I will stay, too.” Making sure that I could had required some lies and some truths that I’d been equally reluctant about. “If that is what you choose. If you want to leave the child here, Merlin and his children would protect her, and I… would still stay. I’m old enough that a few decades wouldn’t matter.”

Even if they would be spent in far too great proximity to the creepiness that was Luke Reynard. He’d notice if I avoided him, and Merlin would kill me if I spoiled his do-over.

“Merlin likes children,” she said. “The human ones as well as his own.”

“I don’t want you to feel trapped. I don’t want you to _be_ trapped.” I stared out over the pond for several seconds before I went on. “I don’t think anyone has made the Pattern such an… open offer before. I’m not sure why--” I shrugged. I wasn’t even sure Coral believed me about the Pattern having held her hostage and forced me. “I wouldn’t have chosen sex with a relative when a child might result. Not even if--” I shook my head. She was too young, too politically connected, too potentially powerful.

Also my aunt.

“I just didn’t like how Dworkin looked when he saw you.” I hadn’t told her that part before. “Getting you out of Amber fast seemed like a good idea, and Merlin’s specifically looking to keep Dworkin out.”

She looked puzzled, and I realized that there was no reason she’d know that part of the family tree.

“Dworkin is your grandfather, my great-grandfather. He has a habit of tinkering. In a very different way than Merlin does. He made the Pattern.” Watching insects on the water really was easier than looking at her. “He’s a shapeshifter, so was Oberon. Oberon’s mother is the Unicorn. She still turns up sometimes. Given Dworkin and Oberon… She’s either to be vastly pitied or greatly feared.” I’d looked into her eyes as she chose the new King, and I still wasn’t sure.

I’d thought she looked amused, and I still thought that amusement was a very strange emotion immediately after the death of her son.

Coral’s sigh was audible.

I didn’t turn to look.

“I had some… inaccurate ideas, didn’t I?”

I swallowed an answering sigh. “I’d rather you hadn’t had to find out at all. I mean… Given the being family part, you’d have had to know a lot of it.” For a moment, I felt Brand’s knife in my gut again. “Being ignorant doesn’t-- Well, you know it doesn’t protect us. I’d really rather it did.”


End file.
